I.1.10] Bibliography of W.B.
Yeats: Allan Wade’s A Bibliography of the Writings of
W.B. Yeats was originally published by Hart-Davis in 1951.
The second edition, to which Rupert refers here, came out in 1958.

I.1.11] Ego: The nine volume autobiography by
James Agate, drama critic for the Times from 1923-1947.
At II.173.3 Rupert calls Volume 8 of Ego “your one.”

I.1.20] Horace Walpole: English writer, antiquarian,
and publisher. A short biography can be found here.

I.2.15] Alan Ross’s Australia 55:Australia 55:
a Journal of the M.C.C. Tour, was published in 1955 by Michael
Joseph, London. Ross traveled to Australia to report on the
1954-5 cricket Test series for The Observer.

I.3.5] My nephew Charles: As noted, “then the Hon C.J. Lyttelton,
captain of Worcestershire, later the tenth Viscount Cobham and Governor
General of New Zealand.” Charles was the son of George’s brother
John Cavendish Lyttelton and his wife Violet (nee Leonard).

I.3.8] Tim’s: As described in the introduction, GL and RHD
became reacquainted at a dinner hosted by Tim and Rosalie Nugent.

I.4.6] your really excellent life of H. Walpole: RHD’s Hugh
Walpole, A Biography was published by Macmillan, London, in 1952,
and is referred to repeatedly in the Letters.

I.4.13] ‘that state of resentful coma which scholars attempt to
dignify by calling research’: Actually ‘Deep thought, that
state of restful coma which scholars attempt to dignify by calling
research’; GL obviously believes this statement is not original to
Laski, to whom it is normally attributed.

I.4.15] Laski . . . letter to Judge Holmes:Harold Laski, professor and socialist, chairman of the
Labour party. The Holmes-Laski letters were published in two
volumes by Geoffrey Cumberlege, London, in 1953.

I.11.20] T.J. Wise: Wise, a well-known bookseller, was discovered
to have forged a large number of nineteenth century pamphlets.
See Collins, The Two Forgers, Partington, Forging
Ahead, and this site.

I.11.26] Cyril Alington: Dean of Durham, 1933-1951.

I.11.31] quatrain of Dorothy Parker’s: correct version:

Whose love is given over-well
Shall look on Helen’s face in hell,
Whilst they whose love is thin and wise
May view John Knox in paradise.

I.12.4] Old Boy Dinner: A school reunion dinner.

I.12.5] horrible! horrible!! horrible!!! as Henry James said:

Letter 5, RHD to GL, 6 November 1955

I.12.14] Jelly: as noted,
E.L. Churchill, RHD’s housemaster at Eton.

I.12.18] My son Duff . . . Chelsea Barracks: “The biggest
army barracks in central London,” according to this website.

I.12.19] the Garrick: “The Garrick is undoubtedly one of the
most brilliant clubs in London. It is also the only one which
has had a street named after it. Founded originally in 1831
. . .” Charles Graves, Leather Armchairs, Coward-McCann, 1963.

I.13.4] my uncle Duff Cooper: Conservative MP (1924-29), Financial
Secretary to the War Office (1931) and to the Treasury (1934-5), Secretary
of State for War(1935-7), First Lord of the Admiralty (1937), Minister
of Information (1940), and Rupert’s mother’s brother. See this
short biography.

I.13.5] the Horatian Society: A society whose aim is to promote
the study of the works and life of Q. Horatius Flaccus, commonly known
as Horace, to meet not less than once a year for a Dinner at which
Addresses are given by one member and one non-member, and to publish
the Addresses. The Dinners are currently held in the Old Hall of Lincoln's
Inn.

I.13.14] My next book: Although not his next book, the first
volume of Hart-Davis’s memoir The Power of Chance. A Table
of Memories Recalling His Mother’s Life and His Own First Nineteen
Years appeared in 1991. CHECK THIS; Hudson claims it’s The
Arms of Time.

When I am animated by this wish, I look with pleasure on
my book, however defective, and deliver it to the world with the
spirit of a man that has endeavored well. That it will immediately
become popular I have not promised to myself: a few wild blunders,
and risible absurdities, from which no work of such multiplicity
was ever free, may for a time furnish folly with laughter, and harden
ignorance into contempt; but useful diligence will at last prevail,
and there never can be wanting some who distinguish desert; who
will consider that no dictionary of a living tongue ever can be
perfect, since, while it is hastening to publication, some words
are budding, and some falling away; that a whole life cannot be
spent upon syntax and etymology, and that even a whole life would
not be sufficient; that he, whose design includes whatever language
can express, must often speak of what he does not understand; that
a writer will sometimes be hurried by eagerness to the end, and
sometimes faint with weariness under a task which Scaliger compares
to the labors of the anvil and the mine; that what is obvious is
not always known, and what is known is not always present; that
sudden fits of inadvertency will surprise vigilance, slight avocations
will seduce attention, and casual eclipses of the mind will darken
learning; and that the writer shall often in vain, trace his memory
at the moment of need, for that which yesterday he knew with intuitive
readiness, and which will come uncalled into his thoughts to-morrow.

I.16.7] Old Men Forget: memoir of Duff Cooper, published
by Hart-Davis in 1953.

I.16.8] Talleyrand: biography of French statesman Charles-Maurice
de Talleyrand-Perigod, published by Jonathan Cape in 1932.

I.16.9] ‘The Jordan blood’ . . . ‘the Glynne blood’: George’s
“Jordan blood” reference seems to come from nowhere, and marks the
first example of visible evidence of editing of the letters on Rupert’s
part. Presumably this reference relates somehow to Rupert’s
mother. Mary Glynne married George William Lyttelton (4th
Baron) on 25 July 1839. She is George’s grandmother.

I.16.12] Gladstone:W.E. Gladstone,
Prime Minister of Great Britain and Ireland. George William
Lyttelton, 4th baron, became Gladstone’s brother-in-law
by marrying Mary Glynne, according to this website.

I.18.24] the new life of Kipling: Charles Carrington’s Rudyard
Kipling: His Life and Work, MacMillan & Co., 1955.

I.19.3] Brains Trust: British radio show, which began its
run 1 January 1941, wherein intellectuals disussed topics of the day.
The show moved to television in the 1950s. A very short clip
is available here.

Letter 8, GL to RHD, 15/16 November 1955

I.19.23] Longinus: Dionysus
Longinus was credited with authorship of On The Sublime, a
very early work of literary criticism. Subsequent scholarship
has called his authorship into question.

I.19.24] They say that Homer sometimes nods . . . Zeus might dream:
I cannot find this quote in Longinus, nor can I find the quote George
gives here by any author. Horace in Ars Poetica states
“I, too, am indignant when the worthy Homer nods, but in a long work
it is allowable to snatch a sleep.”

I.20.14] Old Ram: As noted, A.B. Ramsay, Lower Master of Eton
and later Master of Magdalene.

I.20.28] that fascinating book on Twelfth Night:The First
Night of Twelfth Night. See I.17.32.

I.20.30] I read him on Thackeray: Probably from All In
Due Time, published by Hart-Davis in 1955. At I.8.12 Rupert
says that he will be sending George a copy.

I.21.7] that repose that stamps the caste of Vere de Vere:
from Tennyson’s poem Lady Carea Vere de Vere, Stanza 5: “Her manners had
not that repose which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.”

I.21.13] ‘Proofs of Holy Writ’: The difficulty of finding
this work has vanished in the day of the Internet; see it here.

I.21.16] go heavily as one that mourneth: Psalm 35, verse
14, “I went heavily , as one that mourneth for his mother.”
Occasionally translated as “I bowed down heavily.”

I.21.22] the Astleys:

I.21.22] Charles Morgan: English essayist, author of Reflections
in a Mirror, Macmillan, 1944, and a second series of the same,
Macmillian 1946. These essays were originally published as “Menander’s
Mirror” in the Times Literary Supplement.

I.32.23] ‘Regulus’: A short story by Rudyard Kipling, in which Latin students
are taken through the Horatian ode Regulus, III.5, and made
to translate it.

I.32.25] Craven Scholar: Winner of a Craven Scholarship at
Oxford. See for instance this website.

I.32.27] I am not referring to the author of The Upton
Letters etc.: The author of The Upton Letters appears
to be the same Arthur (AC) Benson who taught George, so I must assume
George is referring to a change in Benson’s personality over time.

I.32.30] Charles Fisher: (1877-1916), cricketer, evidently
a classmate of George’s. See this website.

I.32.30] the Invincible: British battlecruiser sunk
by the Germans at the Battle of Jutland in 1916. See this website and this one for photos and information on the battle.

I.32.32] ‘You can see how the good things are done . . . how the
devil he did it.’: Presumably a statement by Fisher.

I.33.3] ‘Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves’:
from Milton’s Lycidas (1637).

I.34.14: Adam in Moonshine: Novel by J.B. Priestley,
published by Heinemann in 1927.

I.34.21] ‘the paucity of human pleasures’: Samuel Johnson
on the lack of pleasure gained via the activity of hunting: “It is
very strange, and very melancholy, that the paucity of human pleasures
should persuade us ever to call hunting one of them.”

I.34.25] Evelyn’s Prep School:

I.34.29] Lord Montgomery: Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery (1887-1976), commander of the British
Eighth Army in North Africa during World War II.

Letter 13, RHD to GL, 4 December 1955

I.35.8] E.F. Benson:
(1867-1940) English novelist and biographer. See this short biography.

I.35.16] Margaret Duchess of Newcastle: (1623-1673), writer.
See this website. Douglas Grant’s Margaret the First:
A Biography of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, 1623-1673
was published by Hart-Davis in 1957.

I.35.31] Osbert Sitwell: (1892-1969) English writer, brother
of Edith and Scheverell Sitwell. See this biography
of the Sitwells.

I.36.23] Lord Mountbatten:Louis of Battenberg (1900-1979). Involved in British
military command during World War II, Viceroy of India starting in
1947. Killed by the Irish Republican Army, 1979.

Letter 14, GL to RHD, 7 December 1955

I.37.19] As We Were
and Final Edition: E.F. Benson’s As We Were was
published by Longmans, Green & Co. in 1930; his Final Edition
by Appleton-Century in 1940.

I.37.20] An Average Man, The Conventionalists (Robert Hugh
Benson): (1871-1914), English author. The Average Man was
published by P.J. Kenedy in 1913; The Conventionalists by Hutchinson,
apparently, in 1908.

I.39.25] the Petition of Right: “An important document setting
out the rights and liberties of the subject as opposed to the prerogatives
of the crown,” according to this website.

Letter 15, RHD to GL, 11 December 1955

I.40.16] The Dynasts:Lengthy play by Thomas Hardy regarding the “War With Napoleon”.

I.40.30] Great men are meteors . . . this is my burnt-out hour.:
Spoken by the character of Napoleon in Part Third, Act Seventh, Scene
IX of The Dynasts.

I.41.4] quorum pars minima fui: Goethe, writing to
his friend Knebel: “I am very glad that I have seen all this with
my own eyes and that I shall be able to say when people talk of this
important epoch: et quorum pars minima fui.”

I.41.6] the Orleans Club: A London club, absorbed by Boodle’s
by the time of Rupert’s writing; it is somewhat odd that he still
calls it the Orleans Club.

I.49.18] ‘go romancing through a roaring lifetime . . . Judgment
Day’: from J.M. Synge’s best-known play The Playboy of the
Western World, 1911, near the end of Act III, slightly misquoted;
“romping” is correct, rather than “roaring”.

Letter 19, RHD to GL, Boxing Day 1955

I.50.25] Robert Lutyens:
Architect,furniture designer. As noted, son of architect
Sir Edwin Lutyens.

I.54.11] the browsing and sluicing: Eating and drinking.
From Wodehouse’s “Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest”; the full quotation
is “What with excellent browsing and sluicing and cheery conversation
and what-not, the afternoon passed quite happily.”

I.55.22] C.A.A.: As noted, C.A. Alington, Headmaster of Eton,
later Dean of Durham.

I.55.30] My Aunt’s Rhinoceros and other Reflections:
Published by Hart-Davis in 1956.

Letter 25, GL to RHD, 8 January 1956

I.56.5] ‘ultimate allowance
of . . . cymbals in Naxos’: From Max Beerbohm’s And Even Now.

I.56.12] dunnest smoke of Hell: From Macbeth, Act 1,
Scene 5.

Letter 26, RHD to GL, 15 January 1956

I.56.28] Separate Tables:
A 1955 play by Terence Rattigan.

I.56.29] an agreeable publisher called Batsford: B.T. Batsford.

I.56.30] the St James’s Club: Founded 1859, described by Charles
Graves in Leather Armchairs as “the only one in London, or
possibly anywhere else in the world, which has a separate room-and
a large one at that-devoted solely to backgammon.” That may
no longer be true, as the
club seems to have moved to 7-8 Park Place, London.

I.57.15] Salad Days: Musical by Slade and Reynolds;
see this synopsis.

I.57.18] my sister: Deirdre Hart-Davis, later Balfour.

Letter 27, GL to RHD, 18 January 1956

I.58.4] Sir Henry’s dignity,
Sir Squire’s eyeglass, and Sir Seymour’s smile: As noted, this
is a reference to the portraits of Sir Henry Irving, Sir Squire Bancroft,
and Sir Seymour Hicks in the Garrick Club.

I.58.28] A.C.B. in a way ‘kept him off’ . . . ‘so far and no farther’:
The nearest I have been able to find in Hugh Walpole to these
quoted lines is this: “It is amusing and pathetic to see how paternally
he holds me off from throwing myself into his arms.” (p. 260).

I.58.31] his little quatrain:

I.59.5] Arnold Bennett: (1867-1931) English author.
See this biography.

I.59.9] ‘My work will never be better . . . impose on my contemporaries’:

I.59.12] ‘Pooter’ episodes:Hugh Walpole, page 41:
“Some of these incidents, particularly that recorded On October 15,
introduce a leit-motif which runs all through Hugh’s life and
may be described as the Mr. Pooter strain in his character, since
the immortal hero of The Diary of a Nobody he was liable at
all times, and particularly at moments of stress, to minor accidents
of the most mortifying nature. It would be simple, but profoundly
misleading, to base upon them a study of Hugh as a great comic character.”

The October 15 incident, as entered in Walpole’s diary, is this:
“Visited one ship, but suddenly the back of my bags split and I had
to rush home.”

I.59.14] ‘feed on the arid bosom of Heinemann’: Hugh Walpole,
page 74 (as noted in the letter by George, a letter to Walpole from
Henry James): “(Don’t attempt too precipitately to feed on the arid
bosom of Heinemann, let me interpose--with whom I’ve had an
experience--a very long one--beggaring belief; but don’t, either,
please, quote me as the source of that warning.)”

I.59.25] Eden: Sir Anthony Eden, Prime Minister.

I.59.25] Dulles: Either John Foster Dulles (1888-1959), U.S.
Secretary of State, or Allan Dulles, CIA director.

I.60.3] Lord Acton: John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton (1834-1902).
MP for Ireland (Carlow). Professor of Modern History at Cambridge.
It is clear from their dates of birth and death that A.J.P. Taylor
never actually met Actorn or heard him speak.

I.60.10] Julian Huxley: (1887-1975) British biologist and
author. See this short biography.

I.60.30] the Cliveden set:Cliveden, a “spectacular estate overlooking the River
Thames . . . Once the home of Nancy, Lady Astor”. “The Cliveden
set” is a name used, by those of a conspiracy-finding bent, for a
group allegedly intent on the preservation and expansion of the British
Empire. See this
website. Interestingly, the Lyttelton family is mentioned
as part of this group.

I.60.30] Geoffrey Dawson: Editor of The Times of London.

I.61.2] Fitzgerald:Edward FitzGerald (1809-1883), translator of the Rubáiyát
of Omar Khayyám and other poetry.

I.61.3] ‘Don’t write about politics; I agree with you beforehand’:

I.61.8] ‘He was at Eton, and had therefore had no education’:

I.61.13] Cakes and Ale: by W. Somerset
Maugham; a roman à clef of London literary and political
society. According to this website, “This book portrayed Hugh Walpole - in the
character of Alroy Kear - as a rather unpleasant and scheming literary
opportunist.”

I.61.15] vieux: old man.

Letter 28, RHD to GL, 22 January 1956

I.61.24] faute de mieux:
For lack of something better. (Someone, in this instance).

See this
website for commentary on many of the above books by Hugh Walpole.

I.62.1] bien entendu: of course.

I.62.8] his taking a revolver as a present to General Neguib?!:
Neguib was the head of a group of army officers which took over the
Egyptian government in 1952-3. Dulles apparently gave Neguib
what has been described as “decorative pistol” for ceremonial
purposes.

I.62.11] Adlai . . . was married to my wife’s first cousin . .
. Governor of Illinois: Stevenson and Ellen Borden were married
1928; Stevenson was elected governor of Illinois in 1948; the Stevensons
were divorced in 1949.

I.65.22] ‘like a sudden glory’: Thomas Hobbes, On Human
Nature: “Laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from
some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison
with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly.”

I.68.16] Mrs Stevenson:Fanny Stevenson,
wife of Robert Louis Stevenson. The letter (page 219 of Selected
Letters of Henry James, published by Hart-Davis in 1956), begins

My dear Fanny Stevenson,

What can I say to you that will not seem cruelly irrelevant
or vain? We have been sitting in darkness for nearly a fortnight,
but what is our darkness to the extinction of your magnificent light
. . . .

I.70.17] ‘Pig Philosophy’: There seems to be some dispute
about this . . . web searches indicate that Carlyle was speaking of
Utilitarianism, or Political Economy, or Capitalism, as a ‘Pig Philosophy’.
The true subject of which Carlyle may have been speaking almost seems
to be variable, depending upon the political bent of the website author.
It seems most likely that Carlyle was speaking of Utilitarianism,
and made the ‘Pig Philosophy’ comment in his “Latter-Day Pamphlet”
entitled Jesuitism.

I.71.12] Amises: Kingsley Amis (1922-1995), English novelist.
Amis was just enjoying his first measure of recognition at this time,
his star-making novel Lucky Jim having been published in 1954,
and his second novel That Uncertain Feeling in 1955.

I.71.14] The Red House Mystery: Published 1922; available
in full text here.

I.71.19] Geoffrey Davson: (1922-1998) Elinor Glyn was
written by Anthony Glyn (later Sir Anthony Glyn), and published in
1955 by Hutchinson. Geoffrey Davson apparently changed his name
to Anthony Glyn in honor of his grandmother.

I.71.23] Wycherly in The Country Wife: A classic of
Restoration comedy.

Letter 32, RHD to GL, 5 February 1956

I.72.9] Martin de Selincourt:
English businessman; owner of Swan and Edgar’s in Regent Street.
His daughter Dorothy married A.A. Milne.

I.72.14] Christopher Robin: Son of Dorothy and A.A.
Milne; a character named after him appears in the Winnie-the-Pooh
books.

I.72.16] Beachcomber . . . J.B. Morton: The “Beachcomber”
column was a humorous column in the Daily Express; Morton (1893-1975)
was the second author of the column, and evidently the more successful,
following D.B. Wyndham-Lewis.

I.73.15] Mr. Bultitude: A character in F. Anstey’s Vice
Versa. Anstey was the pseudonym of Thomas Anstey Guthrey
(1856-1934).

I.73.20] Janet Adam Smith: (1905-1999) Editor and author.

I.73.21] John B.:John Buchan (1875-1940) Australian/Scottish author, best
known for his thrillers featuring protagonist Richard Hannay, such
as The Thirty Nine Steps (1915).

I.79.25] ‘disgruntled’ though
P.G. Wodehouse . . . ‘gruntled’: In The Code of the Woosters,
Wodehouse wrote: “He spoke with a certain what-is-it in his voice,
and I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from
being gruntled.”

I.80.6] the mellifluous Freddie: Freddie Grisewood, first
chairman of Any Questions, cousin of Harman.

I.80.8] Vyshinsky: (1883-1954) Soviet prosecutor. Responsible
for prosecution of many of Stalin’s political enemies. See this short biography.

I.80.8] Molotoff: (1889-1986) Foreign Minister of the Soviet
Union. See this short
biography.

I.81.9] as Watts Dunton said . . . Max Beerbohm: Swinburne
was rescued from alcoholism by Theodore Watts-Dunton, and lived the
rest of his life at Watts-Dunton’s house. I had hoped that the
reference was to an event from “No. 2 The Pines” in Beerbohm’s And
Even Now, but I could not find it there.

I.81.19] Cranmer’s:Thomas Cranmer
(1489-1556), churchman, creator of the Book of Common Prayer.
Burnt at the stake in 1556.

I.81.25] George Birmingham: As noted, pseudonym of Canon James Own Hannay (1865-1950), novelist.

I.81.26] Birrell who said . . . regret religion was not true:

I.82.3] ‘All occasions invite His mercies, and all times are His
seasons’: John Donne, preaching at St. Paul’s on Christmas Day,
1624, LXXX Sermons, 3.

I.94.34] George . . . Dunbar: The seventh Baronet of Hempriggs,
George Gospatrick Duff-Sutherland-Dunbar (-1963). For a history
of the family, see this website.

Letter 41, GL to RHD, 8 March 1956

I.96.9] ‘those reverend vegetables’:
Misquoted from a letter from Thomas Gray to Horace Walpole, 1737:
“. . . both hill and vale is covered over with the most venerable
beeches, and other very reverend vegetables, that like most other
ancient people, are always dreaming out their old stories to the wind.”

I.99.24] Selfridge:H. Gordon Selfridge (1857-1947), US-born businessman who
established Selfridge’s, a major European department store chain.

I.99.35] John Carter (late K.S.), John Hayward, and Tim Munby:
John Waynflete Carter (1905-1975) of King’s College, Cambridge; John
Hayward, scholar and bibliophile; Tim Munby, as stated in the text,
Librarian and Fellow of King’s, Cambridge.

I.103.26] The Chalk Garden: 1951 play by Bagnold; Rupert
may be wrong about its being “new”.

I.103.32] the Athenaeum: A club, founded in 1824, “for the
association of individuals known for their scientific and literary
attainments, artists of eminence in any class of the fine arts and
noblemen and gentlemen distinguished as liberal patrons of science,
literature or the arts.”

I.112.24] Gwen Raverat:Gwendolen Mary Raverat (1885-1957), British wood engraver.
Rupert may be referring to her book Period Piece: A Cambridge Childhood,
published by Faer and Faber in 1952.

I.112.24] Geoffrey Keynes: Keynes, surgeon and bibliographer,
married Gwen Raverat’s sister Margaret. See his head here.

Letter 49, GL to RHD, 4 April 1956

I.113.6] ‘Have we not all
eternity to rest (talk) in?’: From Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus:
“A little while, and thou too shalt sleep no more, but thy very dreams
shall be mimic battles; thou too, with old Arnauld, wilt have to say
in stern patience: ‘Rest? Rest? Shall I not have all Eternity to rest
in?’”

I.113.10] Mrs Aphra Behn: (1640-1689) “the first professional
woman writer in English,” according to this website.

I.113.12] ‘Pray consider what . . . so lavish with it.’: Misquotes
Dr. Johnson; the correct quotation is “Madam, before you flatter a man
so grossly to his face, you should consider whether or not your flatter
is worth his having.” (Diary and Letters, Vol. I, Ch.2, 1778).

I.113.17] Rayner Wood: As noted, Eton master.

I.113.18] Margaret Fuller: New England transcendentalist.
See this website for her statement and Carlyle’s retort.

I.113.26] ‘To be uncertain . . . to be ridiculous’: Goethe,
evidently, but frequently cited on the Internet as “Chinese proverb”.

‘Ride your ways,’ said the gipsy, ‘ride your ways, Laird of Ellangowan—ride
your ways, Godfrey Bertram!—This day have ye quenched seven smoking
hearths—see if the fire in your ain parlour burn the blither for
that. Ye have riven the thack off seven cottar houses—look if your
ain roof-tree stand the faster.—Ye may stable your shirks in the
shealings at Derncleugh—see that the hare does not couch on the
hearthstane at Ellangowan.—Ride your ways, Godfrey Bertram—what
do ye glower after our folk for?

Letter 59, RHD to GL, 22 May 1956

I.136.20] Charles Whibley:
(1859-1930) Author of A Book of Scoundrels, among other writings.

I.136.25] Lawyer’s Notebooks:A Lawyer’s Notebook
(1932), More from a Lawyer’s Notebook (1933), and possibly
The Lawyer’s Last Notebook.

I.136.28] Bunyan, about the trumpets . . . the other side:
From The Pilgrim’s Progress (1684):

After this it was noised abroad that Mr. Valiant-for-truth was
taken with a Summons by the same Post as the other, and had this
for a Token that the Summons was true, That his pitcher was broken
at the Fountain. When he understood it, he called for his Friends,
and told them of it. Then said he, I am going to my Fathers, and
tho' with great difficulty I am got hither, yet now I do not repent
me of all the Trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My Sword
I give to him that shall succeed me in my Pilgrimage, and my Courage
and my Skill to him that can get it. My Marks and Scars I carry
with me, to be a witness for me that I have fought his Battles who
now will be my Rewarder. When the day that he must go hence was
come, many accompanied him to the River-side, into which as he went
he said, Death, where is thy Sting? And as he went down deeper he
said, Grave, where is thy Victory? So he passed over, and all the
Trumpets sounded for him on the other side."

I.136.35] Avowals, Conversations in Ebury Street, Memoirs of
My Dead Life and A Storyteller’s Holiday: Books by
George Moore, published in 1919, 1924, 1921, 1918.

Letter 60, GL to RHD, 25 May 1956

I.137.13] ventre-à-terre:

I.137.14] King Tiglath-Pileser: King of Assyria, c. 774-727
BC.

I.138.4] message of Vanzetti’s:Bartolomeo Vanzetti (1888-1927), left-wing radical, convicted
of murder amid great controversy, along with Nicola Sacco, and executed
in 1927.

Letter 61, RHD to GL, 27 May 1956

I.138.12] The Essential
Neville Cardus: Published by Jonathan Cape in 1949.

I.148.7] Dr Rendall . . . Butley Priory: Dr. Rendall
was responsible for the restoration of Butley Priory, part of an Augustinian
monastery founded in 1171. See this
website.

I.148.11] noughts and crosses: i.e. tic-tac-toe.

Letter 67, RHD to GL, 17 June 1956

I.148.14] Ruth McKenney:
American author. The novel Rupert discusses here is called Mirage
and was published by Farrar Straus Cudahy, New York, in 1956.
I can find no indication that this book was ever published in England,
or by Hart-Davis.

I.149.20] ‘long live the weeds and the wilderness yet’: From
“Inversnaid” by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

I.150.4] the Druce-Portland case: “Public interest centred
for some years round the allegation that [William John Cavendish Bentinck-Scott,
the 5th Duke of Portland] lived a double life and was identical
with Mr T.C. Druce, an upholstere of Baker Street, London . . .”
Quoted from note 1 at the bottom of this page.

I.170.26] Sir Wyndham Deedes: In tribute to George's assessment,
I can find only a smattering of information on this man. He was a
Brigadier-General, at one time vice-chairman for the National Council
of Social Service, founded the Anglo-Israel Association, and he “set
up the Egyptian police force after the end of the War [WWI]”.

I.174.23] Bishop King of Lincoln:Edward King
(1829-1910), Bishop of Lincoln.

I.174.27] Harriette Wilson: (1786-1846) Famous courtesan;
later mistress of the Duke of Wellington. When she published her memoirs,
including details of her relationships with her lovers, and Wellington
specifically, Wellington gave the famous reply “Publish, and be damned!”
See this short biography.

I.195.27] Wheeler-Bennett: John Wheeler-Bennett (1902-1975),
member of the British Foreign Office during World War II, and author
of a
famous wartime memo in which he claimed that Britain was better
off for Hitler's not having been assassinated, since the resulting
purges eliminated many German higher-ups who might have caused problems
for Britain in the future.

I.195.27] Lockhart:Bruce
Lockhart (1887-1970), head of the Political War Executive of the
Foreign Office; Wheeler-Bennett's immediate superior.